Apr 28, 2010

When I was in grade 8 there wasn’t too much difference in the fashion that there is now. Really short cut-off jeans were the thing to wear in the summer... and my mother was having NONE of it. It had taken me so long to get the fraying just right on them too. I guess I had put up enough fuss about it that she had become suspicious of me when I quickly left for school (wearing my lame just-above-the-knee-length shorts). Of course, I had taken the cut-off jeans with me, with the intent that I would change into them when I got to school... which I did.

It was second period and there was a knock at the classroom door. It was my mother. “Sorry to bother your class. Can I speak with my daughter? I have a change of clothes for her.”

Are you fucking kidding me? I was totally embarrassed! My close friends knew why she had come and they were giving me some pity smirks, but the rest of the class didn’t think anything of it. My mom was a frequent volunteer and familiar face at school, so it didn’t seem weird to most. I didn’t care. I was so angry with her; I couldn’t believe she did that to me...in front of everyone!

I followed her out into the hall. My face was on fire and I wanted to punch a locker, or anything that would make a lot of noise...something to release the rage that I had boiling in my stomach. She shoved the more “appropriate” clothes in my arms and only said one thing to me before she walked away: “Do you think I’m stupid?”

Apr 23, 2010

I thought I was being so sneaky when I would pop in a piece of mint gum and give myself 2 sprays of body mist after I had been smoking like a frickin’ chimney all day at school. Turns out that it never really hid anything; I just smelled like a nauseating blend of mint, orchids and ashtrays. I would always tell my mom that I was in a car where someone ELSE was smoking, not me. Yeah, right!

The morning after a party I had been at, my father asked me to sit down at the kitchen table. We already had a pretty strained relationship at this point, and we never really talked to each other, so I knew something was up. As soon as I sat down, he whipped out a pack of cigarettes from his pocket and slammed them on the table. The hilarious part was that they ACTUALLY weren’t mine. I had forgotten that I was holding a friend's pack the night before because she had no pockets. All I was thinking was, “Shit! The classic ‘They aren’t mine’ excuse wasn’t going to fly, even if it was in fact, the truth.” The irony was too delicious. I couldn’t help it... I laughed. This made my father turn a vulgar shade of purple.

“YOU THINK THIS IS FUNNY? YOU THINK THAT 2 HOLES IN MY LUNGS WERE FUNNY? WE THOUGHT YOU WERE SMARTER THAN THIS– ESPECIALLY AFTER SEEING EVERYTHING I WENT THOUGH!”

I knew I was screwed either way, so I thought I might as well go for gold. “No, but those aren’t my cigarettes... those are Andrea’s; THESE are mine.” As I proceeded to reveal my own pack, which was a different brand, I concluded with, “Andrea’s smokes are totally gross!” I was grounded for 3 weeks.

Apr 21, 2010

So, shit had hit the fan with Jim’s parents at this point and there was one more significant event that took place before I moved to my next host family. Jim and I had attempted some semblance of a non-physical relationship, but it didn’t go very well. We were both confused and angry and exhausted. This one afternoon I was working on some school work in the dining room, listening to “Breathe Again” by Toni Braxton on continuous repeat (horribly depressing break-up song). Jim was leaning up against the side of the staircase, watching me. He was there for almost an hour – I pretended that I didn’t know he was there. After about an hour he finally came into the room, slammed the off button on the stereo, paused for a split second to glare at me with puffy, tear-soaked eyes, said nothing and then stormed up to his room.

That night, his best mate was having a party and surprisingly, his parents encouraged me to go, much to Jim’s disapproval. I invited a good mate of mine from school to come with me; I got along with a lot of Jim’s mates, but I still wanted someone there that was 100% on my team. We had arrived separately, and a bit later than Jim; he had probably been there for at least an hour already, and I could see he was already drunk. He was pretty moody even on a good day, so adding alcohol and depression wasn’t a good look for him; he was rude and tempestuous, especially towards me. I was annoyed with him, to say the least.

Before my placement, not only was I a virgin, I also had never drank or smoked in my life... until that night. I wanted to stick it to Jim by that point after I witnessed his behaviour – and conveniently they had just begun a drinking contest. How hard could it be? I’m in! Well... not only was I good at it, but after downing the first couple beers, my tongue was numbed to the disgusting taste. I won by a long shot – I chugged 7 beers in approximately 30 minutes. I was the latest hero of the party... and to top it off, Jim was livid with me. Everyone was cheering and high-fiving me while he sat in the corner and simmered in disapproval.

But hold on... I didn’t stop there... what about smoking? Why the hell not? Jim was smoking that night; he didn’t normally! My common sense was totally thrown away that night, just so I could spit some gas on to our already raging fire of a relationship. I had turned into a crazy stupid girl that night, one that I barely recognized. My mate wasn’t helping at all – from her perspective I was finally coming out of my shell and letting loose.

“You gotta try a ciggie! It’s an essential when yer drinkin! Camm’on, live a little!”

I think that’s what they call peer pressure... ya think? I was a willing victim of it; I folded easily and took a drag. I don’t think I inhaled the first couple times, but then I did. I coughed a bit and got a super head rush – which could have also been due to the immense alcohol I already had in my system. By the end of the night, I was rather enjoying it – look at me – a pro smoker! If Jim was a cartoon, he would have been emitting fire from his ears and nostrils by this point. I was completely enjoying watching him being so protective of my well being. It was delicious.

Jim had made his way on to the couch, semi-conscious. One of his mates approached me on the dance floor and proceeded to shove his tongue down my throat. I’m still not exactly sure how that had all come about, but I kissed him back. It was like a natural reflex, but then I quickly pulled away. I was still trying to wrap my head around the feelings of being totally intoxicated as well; it was nothing like I had experienced before. Dizzy, horny, sad, happy, angry, drowsy, confused... all at the same time. His mate knew that Jim and I had some kind of un-definable relationship going on, so I have no idea what possessed him to do what he did. Jim saw the entire ordeal – the ONE thing I wished he didn’t see me do that night!

He managed to prop himself up on the couch, like a corpse rising from his grave. “Fuck you. How could you do this to me? Fuck off!” The words were like a knife stabbing me in the chest after every slurred phrase. I started to feel sick to my stomach, but surprisingly not from the alcohol. We started to have one of those monumental alcohol-fuelled couple’s fights, but then he quickly realized that not everyone was entirely privy to our situation. He escorted me into his mate’s bedroom and we garbled intoxicated insults at each other for some time, like we both had frontal lobotomies; it was way too much drama, even for us! It was ridiculous. We were hurling hurtful words back and forth, he called me a slut at one point, and I rebutted by calling him a spineless bastard.

The next thing I knew, we were in his mate’s bed, having sex – drunken clumsy make-up sex, in which we exchanged mutual proclamations of undying affection throughout. I said it already and I’ll say it again... that entire day was thoroughly ridiculous.

Apr 19, 2010

It was a typical teenage Saturday night in suburbia, not much going on. As a group, we decided to make a pilgrimage to a friend’s cabin, about 20 minutes outside of the city. An average night at the cabin consisted of stolen alcohol from our parents’ liquor cabinet, backpacks of full of beer bottles stuffed inside socks (to muffle that pesky clanking sound from unsuspecting adults), and a tent in the backyard, so we could sneak out after midnight. This plan usually yielded a pretty fun evening.

It was a usual night; teenagers drinking in the woods and roaming around the golf course. It was a particularly successful night for me, who hit it off with a nice young man (who looked a little too much like a young David Letterman for my friends’ liking, but I didn’t care). Nonetheless, I had a good time making out with him in the woods, horny and drunk, like any teenage girl would.

The kicker was that I was due to report for a babysitting gig back in town, at 7 am the next morning. I painfully stumbled out of the tent at 6am, staggered onto my bike and proceeded to do a 20 km hung-over bike ride of shame in last night’s clothes. When my employers answered the door the first thing they asked was, "Were you at a party last night?"

"Yeah, that's weird. Why do you ask?"

"Oh no reason...." And off they went. I quickly went to "freshen up" in the bathroom, only to find bright purplish-red hickies all over my neck and leaves sticking out of my hair in every direction, like I was some form of peacock road kill. Fucking classy!

Apr 16, 2010

I did some math to figure out the odds on when any one female is likely to get her first menstrual period. Let’s say there is an approximate 6 year window (roughly) when a girl can start at any time, so therefore that would mean there is a 1 in 2190 chance that it would arrive at any particular date within those years. ONE IN TWO THOUSAND, ONE HUNDRED AND NINETY! So when did my body choose to start the big flow? When I was 12 years old... and oh yes... the first friggin’ day upon arriving at friggin’ DISNEY WORLD. Friggin’ Awesome!

The first few months, of course, it’s not a bright red colour; neither is it the consistency of that pretty blue liquid that the use on the maxi-pad commercials. It was brown and clumpy and disgusting. It was so dark that at first it didn’t even register that that is what it was– I had no idea what it was. I was pretty freaked out; I called for my mom. She came running in and paused, then tilted her head, smiled with a kind of pity-look and put her hand over her heart. “Awe Cutie, you’re a woman now!” ...SAYS WHO?

She ran down to the gift shop in the hotel and got whatever they had – which were these old lady monster pads that looked more like they were for geriatric bladder control (it IS Florida, after all). I don’t know if it was those pads or that I was just paranoid, but I felt like I was just about to leak through my shorts all day. Then, I would check and there would be the tiniest spot or nothing at all; it really sucked. So, including 2 adults and 2 kids, my parents spent approximately $350 that day for admission into the theme park, in which we spent the vast majority of it in line-ups to the ladies washroom. My father had no idea how to take in this new information, nor how to combine it with being where we were. I think he blew a fuse or two that day trying to process it all.

How ironic that my parents made a point to reserve a room at the hotel that had the giant Mickey Mouse-shaped pool – seeing as that I never was able to use it the entire time. It was a bit too soon to attempt tampons at that point, especially when my mom only had the “O.B. no-applicator” type. At 12 years old? Eww, gross!

So, to conclude with my original point– what the heck was wrong with the other 2185 days for a start date? My mother said that it’s a rule of nature that it tends to choose the most inopportune time, so we remember it. Screw that! I would have much rather enjoyed performing a big cannonball into Mickey’s giant ear.

Apr 10, 2010

It was a huge turnout at our mate’s 18th birthday party at the local football club. I went with my mate Amy, and we vowed that at least one of us would be “good”. Well, that obviously didn’t happen.

After a few ciders, a hiccup turned into a chunk of projectile vomit that sprayed right past the guy I liked – of course. He had to duck and then laughed at me, hard!

I was totally mortified.

But at that moment, all I cared about was getting to the toilet. I ended up in one of only 2 stalls in the women’s loo, praying to the porcelain goddess to kill me instead of having to live through the constant vomiting that I was experiencing. It was one of the sickest I had ever been, and still to this day, in my life.... well, due to alcohol, anyway. I had one of our mates, Steve, coming in to the women’s loo, holding my head back by grabbing my ponytail and trying to get me to drink water while he laughed hysterically at my pathetic condition.

Then, all of a sudden, I heard the most horrifying barf beside me in the next stall. It sounded like a small dinosaur ate her young and then brought it back up for a second taste. I peeked under to see if I recognised her from the knees down. Then, Steve yelled, “Amy, you silly bitch!”

Oh shit – you had got to be kidding!

We were supposed to be taking care of each other that night! Instead, we had put the women’s loo totally out of commission; occupied by 2 pitiful girls that couldn’t hold down their liquor.

After a while, we were both stable enough to gather our things to leave in shame and attempt the journey home. It was pouring down with rain and exceedingly windy – to which our 1 sad little umbrella was utterly useless against it. We had no money for a taxi, of course. We ended up walking the entire way back to her father’s place, which was a little over 1 hour of drunken walking from where we were.

We both cried the entire way home, soaking wet and extremely drunk.

We had to stop a few times for vomit sessions, which made us cry even more; we were so cold and utterly miserable. We both thought that walk would never end; it felt like an eternity.

When we FINALLY got back, her father was sitting in the lounge, waiting for us, wondering why we didn’t ring him to pick us up, like we had planned.

Apr 6, 2010

One of my best friends coined this term; it’s an insult hidden in a compliment and while the delivery is often subtle, you’ll know it when you see it. Hence the term is a compliment plus an insult equalling the complisult.

I had been asked to be a bridesmaid at a family friend's wedding. Of course, I attended the rehearsal prior to the big day. At a wedding rehearsal there is no need to dress up– you come as you are. There were a few other family members and friends that had attended the rehearsal as well. After a long morning of hair and makeup, all went well; she got married and then it was time for the party to begin. While making the rounds through the crowd, I ran into a close family friend (who had also been at the rehearsal) and she stopped to talk to me.

Apr 1, 2010

I had just broken up with my first love; the first guy I had sex with. I was 16 and completely devastated. We had broken up mid-week and that next weekend was Halloween, complete with a huge party filled with horny teenagers and a lot of alcohol. I somehow ended up having a “deep and meaningful” chat with one of the guys from my school that I had zero interest in, romantically. The low-down of his sob-story was that he had been with his girlfriend for over 2 years by this point, and she wanted to wait until they graduated high school before they consummated their relationship. Needless to say, he was getting ants in his pants.

Ingredients for disaster:
1 sexually frustrated 17 year old male with a long-term girlfriend that had gone home for the night.
1 heartbroken 16 year old girl, who was so freshly off the rebound that you could taste the Gatorade.
1 bottle of vodka
1 sleeping bag

So, in my drunken lack of judgement, I suggested that I do him a favour and I would have sex with him, but it had to be TOP SECRET. I wasn’t going to be a part of any drama. It was purely a friend doing another friend a big favour so he can get some “relief”. I was also so upset from my break-up that I actually thought this might be good for me, seeing as then my ex-boyfriend wouldn’t be the last person I had been with. The logic is there, although sad and morally skewed. Anyway, so we had sex. It was uneventful, awkward, clumsy.... and quick. And I thought that would be it.

The next morning, I got a phone call from this guy, telling me that he confessed to his girlfriend, broke up with her and that he was in love with me. ARE YOU FRIGGIN’ KIDDING ME? Yuck! I was completely up shit creek now. It would be all over school and within less than 4 months of starting there, I would be labelled “The Slut Outcast”. Fantastic! That had to be some kind of record! I felt so nauseous and stressed out that I spent about 2 hours kneeling in front of the toilet, and metaphorically watching my social life circle the toilet bowl and down the drain.

Lucky for me, that group of friends weren’t very extensive and pretty contained. This school also turned out to be way less caught up in the gossip of other people’s misdeeds than it was at my old school. Minus about 5 people that hated me, I was OK. I survived the promiscuous storm and came out the other side. Life went on.

On a side note, that couple eventually got back together a year or two later, and they are married now with a couple of kids. So, in their relationship timeline, I will permanently be that big glitch. If you read it closely, it would say something like: “That Total Slut that broke-up Mommy and Daddy long before you were born.” Yep, that’s me.